


adhbhuta

by weaslayyy



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, lol this is the most ridiculous thing i've ever written and i havent betaed it at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 00:12:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19366426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/pseuds/weaslayyy
Summary: so, you've killed your uncle the tyrant and now, in front of the pyre, your monkey companion has transformed back into your assumed dead birth father. cool.





	adhbhuta

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Māyin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536114) by [avani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani). 



When Shivu was a child, he often wondered what, if anything, the monkey might say to him if he could speak. Later, he realizes that the monkey is capable of expressing himself plenty -- Shivu can still feel the bump from the mask the monkey threw at him the day Shivu lifted the lingam. 

When Shivu is an adult, and revealed by Kattapa as Mahishmati’s Prince Mahendra, he wonders what, if anything, his sainted father, dead before Mahendra himself drew his first breath, might have said if he could have spoken even one word to his son. Later, he realizes that his father isn't actually as dead as assumed. 

“I’m sorry,” Shivu’s monkey turned father’s first words are, arms wound tight around Shiv-Mahendra’s lady mother as she shudders against his chest. It looks as if neither his beard or hair has been clipped in .... well, Shivu thinks, the last 25 years. For his mother’s sake, Shivu hopes the monkey had taken a bath before the battle.

“Why?” Shivu’s voice, when he can finally push words past his lips are weak, stumbling. Bhallaladeva’s pyre is still burning behind his back, and Shivu believes himself to be bleeding from places he did not even know existed. Perhaps he is about to hear of his father's pride in having defeated a monster his father himself fell victim to. Of course, Shivu will have to tell him that his apologies are unnecessary: it was not his father's fault that he fell prey to his belief in his family's lasting love and good will. 

Shivu’s monkey-father clicks his tongue. “For not coming earlier.” He tightens his arms, making it clear that his rumbling words are directed to the lady Devasena, rather than Shivu. “ _Beloved_ ,” he stresses, “I’m afraid I was rather caught up, trying to watch over the single most dunderheaded child that ever walked the earth.”

Shivu can almost hear the snap of the Resistence’s necks as their heads swivel from gazing in adoration at their returned King to Shivu, now apparently deemed the _single most dunderheaded child that ever walked the earth_.

A negation is on the tip of Shivu’s tongue when, as if in response, a selection of Shivu’s most reckless stunts the last month plays across his mind’s eye. The monkey, bereft of human speech as it was, had made its displeasure clear enough. The monkey turning out to actually be one of Shivu’s parents....Shivu finds himself relieved that at 24 he is finally past the age of corporal punishment.

“If you think you are too old to be put over my knee,” Shivu’s father announces, eyebrow raised as if Shivu has not just sent an actual tyrant to the pits of Hell, “then you deeply underestimate the toll of having to hand you your clothes that last morning and then--”  
  
“I understand!” Shivu tries to cuts in, but his father seems to have lost what shame he even had as a monkey. For the first time, Shivu wonders if this magical miracle was so miraculous after all. 

“And then escorting your.....” Finally, Shivu’s father seems to have the good grace to flush, or at least Shivu thinks he must be. The skin of his father’s cheeks is hidden under all that hair, but Shivu’s own face is hot with the crimson blooming against his skin. He had thought there could be no embarrassment greater than being woken by one’s monkey companion, naked from a drugged sleep after one’s first sexual encounter.

He was wrong.

Briefly, he attempts to meet his father’s eyes in order to beg mercy. The lady Devasena has turned in her husband’s arms, facing Shivu with a kind, if understandably confused expression.

“ _Beloved_ ,” she says with the exact same tone and stress of her husband just moments before, “I am afraid I have no idea what you are talking about. My own experience with our son, the light of my last 25 years in captivity, has been nothing but positive. He is all that I have ever dreamed that he should be, and accomplished what I have always believed he might do.”

Shivu’s eyes widen. He has had these parents for less than 10 minutes, and already he has caused them, Kattapa’s so called perfectly matched pair, to fall into a quarrel. His eyes snap to the monkey, and then when he only sees a pair of knees he raises his sight to meet the amused gaze of his father, who seems to be capable of reading every errant thought Shivu has ever had.

But of course, the monkey had always been able to do that too.

Shivu’s father snorts, leaning forward and tries to brush a gentle kiss to his wife’s brow. Shivu, watching, thinks it just looks like a lot of hair that briefly covers her face.

“Of course,” Shivu’s father says, lips twitching, “we are all very proud of Shivu. In fact we might be even _more_ proud given the improbability of his success at all!”

 _Improbability_ , Shivu mouths as he glares.

“ _I_ never doubted _my_ son,” the Lady Devasena says, chin up and, in that moment the embodiment of royal bearing. Shivu’s eyes fill just slightly with tears hearing such complete faith in his ability from a woman who has suffered so much on his behalf.

“ _ou_ never saw _your_ son scale a waterfall by jumping off of it, and, mid air, shooting an arrow so that it might pierce the trunk of a tree at the very top and use that tree as an anchor to climb.”

Shivu’s sainted birth mother’s jaw drops. “He _what_?” For a moment, it feels like the whole company is holding its breath, waiting for her first expression of anger, beyond the steady fury finally expressed in the still-burning flames. But--

“What a _shot_! And from someone who learned how to shoot in the woods, taught by a monkey! Such a natural talent can only be inheritable.” Her eyes light up, lips turned in a breathtaking smile, the first of hers which Shivu has seen. It is humbling to know that he was the one able to cause its appearance.

“ _Devasena_ ,” Shivu’s father near shrieks, his arms still clasped around her. “He just _barely_ made it! He could have _died_!”

Shivu’s mother clicks her tongue, waving off the complaint. She twists, her face turning towards her husband behind her even as her body still faces Shivu. “As if we didn’t do such things in our youth. If I remember correctly, you climbed and felled a generations old dam, giving the Kuntalan palace a moat where one previously had not existed.”

Shivu’s father opens his mouth, but before he can respond Shivu’s mother continues. “And also,” she says, “there was that part where you rode two bulls, each with flaming horns, at once, one foot on each side. Was that not dangerous as well? Arguably it had far less purpose, beyond attempting to impress a certain princess on the battlefield”

“Well,” Shivu’s father says, his face twisting out of anger and into something resembling what Shivu recognizes with a sinking feeling in his stomach as his father's best attempt at a smirk. For the moment, it seems that Shivu has been entirely forgotten."That was a  _calculated_ risk, and it reaped such excellent dividends, did it not?" He leans forward, the distance between the pair approaching too small to use the word and mean it.

“By the gods,” Shivu finds himself saying, perhaps to himself, perhaps to any one of the members of the Resistance gathered in the courtyard avidly watching the family reunion, “I think they’re flirting.”

“I think you’re right,” he hears someone say in response. It has been 25 years, a war, and a regime change but Shivu’s mother, who has twisted back to facing her husband, is looking up at him with luminous, damp eyes. If Shivu knows anything about romance, and now that he has met Avantika he can definitely say that he does, it is that soon he will be forced to bear the indignity of witnessing his second set of parents in amorous embrace. Horrific. 

“I am a hero,” he speaks again into the general quiet of the courtyard, all the while realizing how asinine the words sound out loud. He could easily be mistaken a small child stamping his foot in petulance at being ignored, but when he risks another look he sees his parents’ lips are moving, in what he assumes to be sweet nothings. He estimates maybe three minutes before they lock. Desperate times call for desperate measures: “Aren’t there other things a _hero_ such as myself can be doing?”

The Resistance, in a show of what true reverence they have for their Deliverer, gives Shivu nothing more than a few scattered chuckles. Shivu's parents are touching foreheads. 

“Come then hero,” he hears the voice he has been waiting all week for, Avanktika whose footsteps get louder as she gets closer. The pyre does not seem to blaze as fierce with Avantika to bear the heat with him. Her hand slips slowly into his, and he tangles their fingers.

Shivu sighs, and feels the weight of the Empire leave his shoulders. Perhaps, if they are so inclined, his parents can help him pick it up later.

“Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> obviously based on avani's EXCELLENT FANTASTIC au fic mayin. mostly an excuse for me to write unbetaed nonsense and post. has no plot, no pacing, no characterization whatsover, but please read review/comment and share if you can! thank you!!!


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